The race for the 36th Assembly Race is getting active. Because of the Runners dominance in races for this seat, many believe that this is an Antelope Valley Seat. Not true as it reached over to take in Victorville and other parts of San Bernardino County. Palmdale City Councilman Steve Knight as announce that he has a majority of the Victorville City Council on board. His campaign announced that Victorville Mayor Terry Caldwell, and Council Members Bob Hunter and Mike Rothschild endorsed the campaign. Smart move reaching over to the SB County folks. See press release below. Right now the only announced candidate running against Knight is Steve Fox. But everybody expects Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford to get into this race. He has some problem of his own. Controversy continues to swirl around his connections to the IBEW and their contributions to his failed assembly bid and his attepts to pay them off in Palmdale. You can read … Read More

In place of our regular daily commentary, we feature the following special guest commentary from Republican Assemblyman Guy Houston. Houston, who serves as Vice-Chairman of the Assembly’s Local Government Committee, is an important voice in the debate over the future of ACA 8, the "Trojan Horse" faux-Eminent Domain "reform" measure put forth by the League of Cities as a blocking-maneuver to prevent a real reform measure that would have protections for all property owners against abusive government takings. In Houston’s commentary, just see how many kinds of property are NOT protected from "Kelo" type government action? Without any further introduction, here is Houston’s piece:

Republican Opposition Can Stop Misleading Eminent Domain “Reform”… Read More

The Los Angeles Times reported on the 7th that Orange County prosecutors plan to file a civil case against former Capistrano Unified School District Superintendent James Fleming, and other officials alleging that trustees, including Crystal Kochendorfer and Marlene Draper, illegally conducted public business in secret, including approving millions of dollars in construction cost overruns for the new district headquarters. The report was based on recently unsealed grand jury transcripts.

I suspect the grand jury may not yet have completed all its work on this sad tale of political corruption at CUSD, and more witnesses may be called before a case is actually filed. Having served as counsel to the prior CUSD recall campaign, I can tell you there really is a lot of evidence of misdoing to collect. The Times reported the OC District Attorney’s "looming complaint " will allege that district officials, among other matters, violated the state open-meeting law, Brown Act.

I successfully brought a private-attorney general Brown Act case against the CUSD last year on similar charges for my client Ron… Read More

UPDATE: Two more departures – political director Rob Jesmer and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen.

This morning, the top two figures in the McCain for President campaign, Campaign Manager Terry Nelson (pictured) and John Weaver, abruptly and unexpectedly — quit.

Senator McCain’s longtime advisor Rick Davis is stepping up to fill the role, begging the question of whether McCain’s campaign is (rather quickly) transitioning from a major nationwide effort that had him topping the polls for some time, to one of those pained campaigns where the esteemed U.S. Senator runs around America running for President, when everyone knows he is not a factor.

Momentum is important for a campaign — more positive things beget more positive things. The reverse is also true — bad news can quickly… Read More

URGENT MEMO TO ASSEMBLY REPUBLICANS

Date: July 9, 2007 To: Assembly Republican Legislators From: Jon Fleischman, Publisher, The FlashReport RE: Your vote is urgently needed against ACA 8

There is a very dangerous measure making its way through the California legislature right now, Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8, authored by Democrat Hector De La Torre.

Why is this measure dangerous? As we all know, the tragic decision of the United States Supreme Court in Kelo vs. New London has allowed for significant abuse of eminent domain by government, allowing private property to be seized by local government on behalf of other private parties, if there is economic benefit to the local government. It’s a terrible decision, and one that rightly strikes fear into all advocates of the rights of private property owners.

Since the… Read More

From today’s Political Diary E-mail:

Return of Sheehan

Liberals should be wary of some of the personalities they’ve pushed forward to secure temporary advantage in the debate over Iraq. Ned Lamont, the anti-war activist who defeated Joe Lieberman in a Democratic Senate primary last year but then lost to Mr. Lieberman’s independent candidacy, comes to mind. So too does movie director Michael Moore, whose "Fahrenheit 9/11" energized the left-wing base but whose extreme statements (the Cuban people have "artistic freedom") often repel moderate voters, is another.

Now comes Cindy Sheehan, the eccentric mother of a soldier who died in the Iraq… Read More

Here is some great breaking news to follow Anthony’s great blog post on ACA 8 below. I have just had it confirmed that while ACA 8 had been scheduled for a hearing in the Assembly Local Government Committee this Wednesday, that hearing has now been CANCELLED.

Presumably this could change, and I am not privy to the "backroom politics" as to why it isn’t being heard, though it is obviously the choice of its author, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre. You see, De La Torre is the Chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee, and the reason that ACA isn’t being heard on Wednesday is because is it being held up in the Rules Committee…

I guess if we wanted to take a guess as to why the brakes were put on, perhaps De La Torre has insisted that the proponents of ACA show him where the necessary GOP votes would come from in order to give it the 2/3rds vote it needs to pass.

I am not aware of ANY Republicans, at this point, who are willing to publicly associated with this "Trojan… Read More

At tonight’s meeting of the San Joaquin County Republican Central Committee, members were informed that former Stockton Mayor and 2004 5th Senatorial district candidate Gary Podesto has changed his registration to independent and resigned from the committee. Podesto had also served a short period as Chairman of the committee.

An election will be held next month to replace him as an ex-officio member of the committee.… Read More